is now a good time to talk abt "it's not about politics" in relation to sports. i'm sorry but literally everything is about politics are you stupid 😭 what a stupid sentence i hate it so much. and i've yet to see anyone draw a line in the sand about what "about politics" actually means. in the case of hockey it seems to be that visiting the white house isn't political, it's just tradition. but pride tape is too political, and the sport isn't about politics. in the case of f1, wearing a shirt to raise awareness for human rights is too political and why do you have to bring politics into our sport, but allowing a convicted felon running for president into the garage of one of the top teams is fine, bc it's obviously not about politics.
it's literally just a buzzword that people throw around to excuse some behaviour, and not others.
and i'm sorry, but in a world where professional athletes can go on podcasts and talk abt how they're totally not sexist, but they just don't think people should be allowed to get abortions, and where alex ovechkin has been basically doing the work of putin's PR team for the last twenty years, everything is fucking political. even staying silent and having no observable political opinions is still political, because ignorance is a privilege that a lot of people can't afford. there is no possible way to seperate politics from something as commodified and commercialised as professional sports
If you feel this way, here are some Gofundmes you can donate to
Abu Shammalah Family (€953/100,000)
Moment Alostaz family (€7,539/70,000)
Youssef family (€9,395/50,000)
Renad & Her Family (£9,696/25,000)
Alia's Family (€7,870/30,000)
Mohamed Hamad and his family (£3,872/50,000)
Safaa and her family (€9,757/20,000)
Maliha Family (€23,446/32,000)
Mahmoud Abu Hamam (CAD $5,348/10,000)
Eman Abuhayya Family (AUD $40,455/85,684)
Ezzideen & his Family (€26,314/75,000)
Ahmed's family (€4,658/70,000)
Let's do our part to help the people of Gaza!!!!
Hussein Alezzi, the Deputy Foreign Minister of Yemen
You should be furious that people trying to escape genocide in Gaza, Sudan, Congo all need raise an absurd amount of money just to survive
You should be furious at how these people went through atrocity after atrocity and still need raise tens of thousands of dollars to get away
You should be furious at this insidious thing that completely encapsulates how capitalism feeds off of blood
south africa was banned in the olympics in 1964, 1968, 1972, 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988 & 1992. a total of 8 times. for 28 years they didn't set foot in the olympics. you know why? apartheid. apparently the olympics disagreed with the apartheid regime in south africa. russia & belarus aren't allowed to take part in the olympics this year. you know why? because of their involvement in the war in ukraine. several countries throughout history haven't been allowed to participate in the olympics because of various reason from their involvement in war to human rights abuses. now if the olympics aren't blind to all that... why in the world are they blind to what israel has been doing to gaza for the past 10 months? why is a genocidal apartheid nation allowed to participate in the olympics when any other country in its place would've been banned?
If you're having trouble keeping up with what's going on in Palestine because of US news coverage of university protests, here are some articles you can read and a video you can watch:
While CNN & all the other mainstream media try to paint the university protests as "pro terrorism" (which they're not, they're literally anti-war protests.) Palestinians are being slaughtered by the minute.
Please don't stop speaking about Palestine.
Israel murdered a FIFA football referee, assistant referee, and 3 players from the Palestinian national team, as well as 263 professional footballers in Gaza.
Every sports facility, and all 41 football pitches have been damaged or destroyed by Israel, with the Yarmouk stadium turned into a concentration camp.
What did @FIFAcom do? It cancelled today's meeting regarding a potential ban on Israeli players, enabling Israel to continue its behavior, and rewarding it through participation in the Olympic games.